


Cardigan

by Florchis



Series: Florchis ships it all [11]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: I knew you’d linger like a tattooed kiss. I knew you’d haunt all of my ‘what if’s’. The smell of smoke would hang around this long 'cause I knew everything when I was young. [Quakerider post-Robbie's disappearance]
Relationships: Melinda May & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Robbie Reyes/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Series: Florchis ships it all [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979050
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Cardigan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [26stars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/gifts).



It takes several hours for the reality that he is gone to sink in. 

A lot of things have happened in a really short amount of time, and some of them were easier to assimilate: being legitimate and being back with the team long term the main ones. It was easy to get lost in the whirlwind of people and activity- to allow herself to get lost. As far as coping mechanisms go, that one might even be the healthiest one she has used in a long time.

It is when she is back in her old bunk, well into the night, the door closed, silence creeping in from between the bricks, that his absence hits her like a truck- or a Dodge Charger. 

Daisy is out of her room and back in the hallway before the thought is fully formed inside her mind. Her feet take her of their own accord to the training room; she has sweated off all kinds of emotions there, good and bad, and it seems only fitting. She might even be a good girl and bandage her hands before going to town on the punching bag.

It throws her off that the light is still on when she is nearing the room- she wasn’t expecting anyone else to still be awake at these hours, not with the crazy schedule everyone seems to be running around now. She hesitates before taking the last turn, but her gut feeling was right- it is May, who is apparently putting away a lot of head protectors. Despite the tiredness and the overwhelming sadness that is trying to take over her body at all times, she can’t help a small smile. She both feels sorry and an insane amount of jealousy for people who are still training under her SO.

(Does she still have the right to call May that, did she even before she left? The problem when you have many wounds is that it is nearly impossible to ignore one without pressing on a different one.)

“Hey.” May acknowledges her with a nod and something warm settles in the middle of Daisy’s chest. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Work needs to be done,” May offers as all explanation, and Daisy thinks back to the woman who pretended she only wanted to pilot the plane, and how easy it is to remember how much she has changed and how easy it is to forget that the rest have changed too. “You?”

Daisy stops in the middle of bandaging her left hand. She could say she is running on a different sleep schedule. She could say she still has leftover energy to blow off. She could say that it is hard getting used again to sleep in a- functionally- new place. She could say that being in her old bunk brought back the memories of Lincoln. Any and all of them would be technically true, but the biggest reason comes out of her mouth before she can finish deciding if she wants to push it back or not.

“I lost someone today.”

“Ah.” The same way she doesn’t need to say much for May to understand her, Daisy can catch all the fine subtleties in May’s voice. “A friend?”

Daisy ponders the questions. There is an easy way to answer it. And then there is the truth. 

“An almost.” 

May’s face is unaffected, the way May’s face is, but being able to somehow put into words the knot inside her chest helps. She is mourning a man who had- has?- flaws but that was good: a good partner, a good brother, a good fighter. But she is also mourning a story that was just on the tip of her fingers- all the ways in which he understood her and all the ways in which they could be good for each other, even all the ways in which they could be bad for each other in all the right ways.

How do you mourn something that you didn’t even have? 

May doesn’t say anything else but moves beside the punch bag to hold it, and this is only one more item in the long list of things Daisy would never be able to repay her.


End file.
